“There were two girls, at least, that we know of,” said Val Richey,
Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney for King County. “One from New
Jersey. One from Idaho, who ended up coming to Seattle, almost by
accident, on a bus. They got off and stumbled into the encampment.
That’s when it all began. Unfortunately, they then suffered a series of
awful, horrible experiences.”

Richey told KIRO Radio’s Ron and Don
that the men have been charged with rape, so far. There is information
that a sex trafficking operation was occurring in the camp. An
investigation into that allegation is underway.

But it goes beyond Seattle. Prosecutors like Richey believe hundreds
of local children are being trafficked online. He has prosecuted cases
with victims between the ages of 11 and 14. Richey said businesses and
landlords, especially, have a role in reporting suspicious behavior.

Sex trafficking in the United States

While child sex trafficking is a serious issue, it is one corner of
the problem. Richey notes that there is big business in getting
vulnerable women from other countries into the United States.

“There’s millions (of dollars) a week (from sex trafficking),” Richey
said. “We know this because we have tracked the money. The people who
profit are the ones who are centralized – the bookers, the brokers who
arrange to get them over here, the immigration attorneys who help with
fake visas. We had a woman who spoke no English at all, from an Asian
country, and on her visa it said she was going to a concrete convention
in Las Vegas. You got to be kidding me. There’s just no screening of any
kind to identify what’s going on here. So we have thousands of women
all over the country in this situation.”

Usually, Richey said, the women are told a fake story to get them to
travel to the United States. For example, they can make a lot of money
working as a masseuse in America. Once in the country, they are farmed
out to a sex trafficking operation. Girls are placed in a residence such
as an apartment or a house, and are cut off from the outside world. An
ad is placed on a website for their services. From there, they are sold
to different men each day. The women often don’t speak English.
Communication can be done through a translation app on a smartphone.
They are told that they will go to jail or worse if they call the
police.

Many of the women in this case are between the ages of 18-30, Richey said.

“The entire market is held up by guys buying sex,” Richey said. “The
demographic is 40-60 year-old-white men – middle to upper class. Those
guys have the money to pay $300 an hour for this stuff. The women keep
very little of it. Most of it goes to the house, the brothel operator,
the booker.”

“We’ve arrested tech workers, doctors, lawyers, everybody,” he said.
“What we have found is a lot of the guys have problems in their life.
It’s not just their marriage, it’s depression, or maybe some
psychological issue and they’re trying to resolve those issues through
buying sex.”